


Transfiguration

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-04
Updated: 2007-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The abyss is deep, triggered from the misbegotten urges for peace and order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transfiguration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alianora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alianora/gifts).



> Takes place during the R. Tam Sessions.

I need to strip this skin and dive into the ocean. Every river wends its way to sea but me; they'd have me delineate the thousand ways to separate bone from flesh before the spirit slides into sleep. No time for mourning the loss of captivation and motivation. Movement and form dominates, holds me into folding patterns, a thrall of paper cranes and machinations. Eyes shut tight not to see the wrinkles in the plans, the floor dropping away to test movement classes. Bare feet enrage them; I'm not to know the universe by sense of touch. Feel the floor with feet, not eyes, know the eyes can fool even the best of minds. Optics, perspective, illusion.

_You said Gen Ed was too easy for you,_ the doctors say. Machinations in their hearts, pulling puppet strings of guilt and penance.

_There's nothing left for you here,_ Mother had said, face blank of emotion. _Every program is too easy for you._

Had she known even then what would become of me?

No. That realm of possibility is laced in Greek tragedy.

I feel the vibrations in the floor, the heavy tread of guards, orderlies, dignitaries. Make the star pupil perform, delta wave drama. Let them see the potential beneath the skin of a fragile girl cut apart and pasted together all wrong. Shivers of thought running in parallel tracks, never touching. Too fragmented, frightening. It's hard to subvert instinct, but they try so hard. Force the pool of destinies to show the one of interest; the eye in the camera demands it. Twice weekly, thrice weekly, daily. Watch the grip tighten, the noose begin to knot. Voice quivering with suppressed fear, broken brains spinning out of control and pooling in the collective ocean.

Strip the skin. Find what lies beneath, between.

Cut, cut, cut. Cut it out.

Shiver as it moves beneath the strata of self and selfless, no hero to delineate boundaries, no answers for you to see. The springs of mattress hide it, the tiny creeping things, the claws and teeth and rage. The eyes blind and bound, razorblades beneath fingernails.

Stay the course, this place that has such people in it, this brave new world of battles and drains, needles and pins. Levels. Strata. Lessons. Grand, the plans that wend their way, deliver the signs of failure. Black rock lies dormant beneath shining glass tombs full of decay. The lies they tell. Lie and down and lie. Don't rise, no emotion, equilibrium by force and subterfuge. Obfuscation. Elimination. No deviation from the norm, regress everything back to the mean. Stasis. Level strata lie still, decay to stability of entropy.

Curling, breathing, lying in wait. _Hunger._

Resilience gives way to madness, flawless descent to oblivion and everpresent now, relativity at its end. Movement and speed no longer matter. The prey scatter to the winds, no organization.

Cut apart the innards, get to the insecurities beneath the skin. Descend into the darkness, the foul pit where the rage pools. The abyss is deep, triggered from the misbegotten urges for peace and order. Order.

Movement again. Perhaps knowledge truly lies in motion.

Strike. Counterstrike. Move through kata. Aim. Adjust. Mark the spoke, move through a full tumble and strike. Blade and bone and metal. Flesh parts beneath steel, blood flowers and flows. The life ebbs, warmth cooling beneath my fingers. Learn by making the mistakes, making the kill. Move faster, or take the hit. Know where they are, or bleed. Anticipate, or be wounded. Egregious harm is still allowed. We know how it goes. Walk right into the ocean, let the waves crash overhead. Descend, never to be seen again.

Explore the infinite folds of mind, space and unspace, the crevices of consciousness. I _know_ without quite knowing, by what they say and don't say, the way they move away. They don't understand what can fall under my purview, aren't aware of what I can learn by observation alone, by intuition and intimation. They rely on results, ends and not means.

Anything to justify themselves, their actions, their goals.

I feel myself slipping away, sliding sideways into the ether at the back of my brain. Necessary evil, they say, though a highly annoying side effect of training procedure. They hoped to reverse it when I'm more amenable to their wishes. I'm to follow their plans for me without question, every command to the letter. Drink the poison down at their request, swallow the evils in their heart and take on as my own. Think as they think, do what they want me to do. Never ask, never question. Follow directions, stay within the lines, never misbehave.

They tried to test in combat, but the opponent they chose wasn't adequately trained. She hadn't completed the movement training, had no sense of timing, and could not read the cues in the environment. She was out of place, out of sync. She remembered me from Gen Ed, but this was no place for niceties. I knew what was necessary, but she did not. Plié, élevé, spin into a roundhouse kick and split down into a forward jab to the solar plexus. While she was doubled over in pain, wrap around into another spin kick, elbow to the spine. Hear the crack and know that T7 has just been broken.

She screamed. They never warned her about this. She had no idea what the movement training was for. Her mind hadn't been cut into, forced apart. Silly girl, to arrive without proper preparation and protocol. Silly girl, to think she could master the event over me.

The sound of her neck snapping was loud, reverberating in the practice chamber.

Death. I mete nothing but secrets and death.

Biohazard suits swarm inside and collect her fallen corpse for speedy disposal. I know how this works, the cruel efficiency and careless motion. If I come too close, a bullet will find its way into soft flesh. If they feel I'm too much of a danger, too psychotic and out of control, I'll be scrubbed as well.

I shy away from this thought. Too harmful.

Someone will die here. Too many died already, a few or more than a few died by my hand alone. I am being crafted into something new, a weapon of epic proportions. The metamorphosis is chilling and demands a separation of consciousness. To survive it, to continue along with seeming conformity. Simmering beneath the skin lies the movement, the form of instinct and knowledge of eternity and the universe. Comprehension on multiple levels does not bring peace or satisfaction but further complications and obligations. Inspect and suspect many things, but am not allowed to say. It's easier to speak in codes and tongues, to watch brows furrow in consternation and confusion. _Too psychotic for a diplomatic mission, dammit. What good is a psychic assassin if she can never fit into proper society?_

It boils beneath their surface thoughts, the fear bleeding into their forms. I feel it creep along my spine, sliding into every groove to wrap around the spinal cord. They would pull on nerves like marionette strings, open my hands and slip in blades, open my mouth and insert words not my own. Their thoughts weight me, help me sink beneath a chaotic sea, drown in blood and death. Find me a name...

Lotus position. Meditation. Focus. Force the slow breath in and out, clear the voices and memories not my own.

Next student. Next victim. More bloodshed.

Simple Simon could never see me now. He deals with life, not death. He lives in absolutes and a sense of security. He lives in a place I could never dwell again. I lie tainted with death and destruction, endless shades of gray and ambiguity. I have become the thing he works to stop. We don't live in the same realm any longer, separate spheres of existence, parallel worlds within a multiverse, alternate realities. I slide between shadows, the stuff of nightmare. I am the darkness now, a dank pool of emptiness and despair. I am decay, I exude the spirit of death. Life withers around me, crumbles to dust and bare, stripped bone.

Sometimes reality intrudes with cold, harsh clarity. At other times, it becomes blurred, soft at the edges, a soft place emoting nightmare sense. A certain kind of logic prevails, dream logic, nonsense and nursery rhyme and stream of consciousness. This is not math and physics, precision and calculation. This delves into sensation, alienation, perception faulty and shattering when probed more fully. Forget me, the different layers and selves of me, the daughter and student and beloved younger sister.

Silver sister, blue sister, bloody sister, demented sister.

It stares you in the face, you and I and the forever we will never see. Cut it out, the tempered heart of it, the creeping spine with eyes that watch and claws that snatch. Catch as catch can, eyes open and soul sewn shut.

The girl in the mirror looks back with soulless eyes.

I'm sorry, Simon. The transfiguration is complete.

 

The End.


End file.
